The C2C Sit Down with Lakeview
I first came across the term “Yinzer” from being an avid listener to The Pat McAfee Show on YouTube but it is simply the loveable term adopted by the hard-working blue-collar people of Pittsburgh, which is exactly how you would describe Luke Healy and Jesse Denaro who collectively perform together as Lakeview.
The duo infuse country, rock and heavier sounds who came together from backgrounds in metal put out their debut EP “Small Town Famous” in late 2021 and have continued to feature on multiple artists to watch lists prior to their European debut at this year’s C2C: Country to Country festival in Rotterdam, Berlin and London. After catching their sets in both the German and British capitals, Jamie spent some time with the guys to talk about the festival and look ahead to their forthcoming full-length debut album which is due later this year.
It’s so good to have you both here and welcome to London. I caught your set yesterday when you opened up the whole festival!
“Yeah I guess we were as we were the first ones on that stage.” (L)
How did you guys think it went?
“Surprisingly really well with being that early in the morning and it feels really early for us mentally so, it’s hard to see if people are going to get involved and getting into the activity of being at a concert but they were and it was amazing.” (L)
I imagine that you had heard some things about playing over here, how did you feel like the sets at the festival lived up to those expectations?
“I think it exceeded them for sure. We weren’t really sure, yeah we heard they love country and they’re going to love you guys but the stuff that really blew our minds was people actually knowing the words and singing along. It wasn’t just random people enjoying the show but people were telling us that they came here to see us and were really excited to see it which is crazy.” (J)
The duo infuse country, rock and heavier sounds who came together from backgrounds in metal put out their debut EP “Small Town Famous” in late 2021 and have continued to feature on multiple artists to watch lists prior to their European debut at this year’s C2C: Country to Country festival in Rotterdam, Berlin and London. After catching their sets in both the German and British capitals, Jamie spent some time with the guys to talk about the festival and look ahead to their forthcoming full-length debut album which is due later this year.
It’s so good to have you both here and welcome to London. I caught your set yesterday when you opened up the whole festival!
“Yeah I guess we were as we were the first ones on that stage.” (L)
How did you guys think it went?
“Surprisingly really well with being that early in the morning and it feels really early for us mentally so, it’s hard to see if people are going to get involved and getting into the activity of being at a concert but they were and it was amazing.” (L)
I imagine that you had heard some things about playing over here, how did you feel like the sets at the festival lived up to those expectations?
“I think it exceeded them for sure. We weren’t really sure, yeah we heard they love country and they’re going to love you guys but the stuff that really blew our minds was people actually knowing the words and singing along. It wasn’t just random people enjoying the show but people were telling us that they came here to see us and were really excited to see it which is crazy.” (J)
“There were a handful of times where they were correcting our lyrics on stage, where we are like we haven’t played this song in a long time. We usually don’t play acoustic so, we’re trying to remember certain lyrics and we have people in the crowd, halfway across the world reminding us of our own lyrics, which is just crazy.” (L)
I totally saw that and felt wild to be in the crowd. I saw you last weekend in Germany and being totally honest, at the time I wasn’t too sure about you guys but I think that was because it was Berlin that wasn’t too sure about you. You had said on stage yesterday that whilst you had being playing the shows in Germany, some things were going right over their heads and it’s like yes, these two are a perfect fit for here. For me, the UK audience get what you do because we have a duo over here called Holloway Road who are a bit cheeky have a lot of banter as we call it, similar to the way you guys are. Then also there are a pair of Australian troublemakers called Seaforth.
“Oh yeah, we are friends with those guys, Mitch and Tom are our boys unfortunately.” (L)
Again, they have the same sort of vibe and feel with their live shows as you guys do, where people here get that and love that. Going back to Berlin, it is a very different festival to here.
“It is very different. Very different in some ways and very much the same in some other ways but the general consensus after talking to some folks in Germany from stage and trying to get some laughs and jokes, it felt like everything was a little too literal and that was our fault.” (L)
“I think everybody in Germany was just ready for us come out with our full band and rock their faces off, then we come out with acoustics where we know it is way different so, we’re going to make some jokes because that’s just what we do.” (J)
It was almost like people wondering “why are there two football hooligans on the stage” ha-ha where here, people definitely got it and it was rocking in that crowd. To see people with your merch in the crowd here, before you have even played a show here was wild.
“It’s so weird because we don’t even have merch here, they bought it and must have got it shipped overseas so that’s amazing, it’s incredible.” (J)
Has been coming here something that has been on your radar for a while as something that you wanted to do? Now that you have been here and have done it, whilst there are the voices reminding you of the time and financial commitments for coming over, do you get it now and want to plan to make it a regular thing?
“I think people are more grateful here because they know what it takes to come all of this way, For us if we can make just enough to get here, we can make zero dollars a show, I don’t care, I just want to play and give people the proper Lakeview show.” (J)
I guess that is the next goal then, to be able to come back and bring the full band over. For the people that have seen these acoustic sets here in Europe, how different is the full band show?
“It’s heavier, it’s more metal and more rock.” (J)
I totally saw that and felt wild to be in the crowd. I saw you last weekend in Germany and being totally honest, at the time I wasn’t too sure about you guys but I think that was because it was Berlin that wasn’t too sure about you. You had said on stage yesterday that whilst you had being playing the shows in Germany, some things were going right over their heads and it’s like yes, these two are a perfect fit for here. For me, the UK audience get what you do because we have a duo over here called Holloway Road who are a bit cheeky have a lot of banter as we call it, similar to the way you guys are. Then also there are a pair of Australian troublemakers called Seaforth.
“Oh yeah, we are friends with those guys, Mitch and Tom are our boys unfortunately.” (L)
Again, they have the same sort of vibe and feel with their live shows as you guys do, where people here get that and love that. Going back to Berlin, it is a very different festival to here.
“It is very different. Very different in some ways and very much the same in some other ways but the general consensus after talking to some folks in Germany from stage and trying to get some laughs and jokes, it felt like everything was a little too literal and that was our fault.” (L)
“I think everybody in Germany was just ready for us come out with our full band and rock their faces off, then we come out with acoustics where we know it is way different so, we’re going to make some jokes because that’s just what we do.” (J)
It was almost like people wondering “why are there two football hooligans on the stage” ha-ha where here, people definitely got it and it was rocking in that crowd. To see people with your merch in the crowd here, before you have even played a show here was wild.
“It’s so weird because we don’t even have merch here, they bought it and must have got it shipped overseas so that’s amazing, it’s incredible.” (J)
Has been coming here something that has been on your radar for a while as something that you wanted to do? Now that you have been here and have done it, whilst there are the voices reminding you of the time and financial commitments for coming over, do you get it now and want to plan to make it a regular thing?
“I think people are more grateful here because they know what it takes to come all of this way, For us if we can make just enough to get here, we can make zero dollars a show, I don’t care, I just want to play and give people the proper Lakeview show.” (J)
I guess that is the next goal then, to be able to come back and bring the full band over. For the people that have seen these acoustic sets here in Europe, how different is the full band show?
“It’s heavier, it’s more metal and more rock.” (J)
“It’s a lot more engaging, I don’t even know how to describe it. There’s obviously some YouTube videos that people can look up and see the vibe and what happens with the energy but the sound, we work really hard on getting our music to sound the way that it does. The guitar tones, these riffs and things like that are things we put a lot of time into, just as much as writing the lyrics and melodies. We make sure that comes across big, very loud and clear when we play as a full band, I think that people were ready and wishing that we had that her now, but next year for sure, we can do anything.” (L)
The two of you are Pittsburgh boys, proper Yinzers who represent that city and the blue collar mentality that you talked about on stage but how did the two of you decide that you like each other enough to spend a lot of time together and play in a band with each other?
“It just happened man, we were writing songs and living together, working together in Pittsburgh then one thing led to another.” (J)
“We just grew up with very similar backgrounds, so may things about our lives are things that we share with similar friends and similar upbringings so, it was kind of organically happened but also it’s an easy decision when you know that you are doing something with your best friend. It’s weird to say and I didn’t realise this but this wasn’t a common thing and especially in this genre when you look at duos or bands as a lot of times it is put together but we are not like that at all, this is literally my best friend and I would die for him every day. We have said that as soon as this ever stops being fun, we stop doing it because we have done that in our past projects and it ruined it for us but this is about having fun and getting it out to the folks that need to hear it.” (L)
You do get that vibe of the two of you being tight then if you are working together because you believe in it and you love to do it together rather than just to keep going it is so authentic and that comes through. It’s different, it stands out and there isn’t the “box” with as much snobbery over here of what is and isn’t country so, I totally dig it.
“In America there are a lot of fake rules where you can’t do this and you can’t do that.” (J)
Yeah, people want to try and put you into a box.
“That is what that is, it is fake rules. I think country music is storytelling, I think country music is talking about real shit and I think we are a newer version of a Lynyrd Skynyrd, where they didn’t know where to put it back then, they were country, they were rock and they were that which is kind of what we are doing but also we aren’t ever going to put a hard label on what we are doing, we’re just trying to put out the best music that we can. We’re talking about the shit that we’ve been through that connects with people just like us.” (L)
I think that’s one of the reasons why the genre is so exciting, especially when you hear that people like Post Malone are coming into it and it is so different from what my friends that don’t listen to county, think I’m listening to.
“Yeah who cares what people want to call it, music is either good or bad. I like the idea of the Post Malone stuff, he comes from the same background as us and I just really enjoy the idea of blurring that line. As a fan and a person that listens to all different types of music, it would be really cool to see my favourite country artist, my favourite hip-hop artist and yada, yada, yada on one bill so, yeah sign me up. We’re making that our mission to kind of do that and do what we want to do, where people hop on board or they don’t.” (J)
Just to round off, in terms of new music and new projects on the way, have we got anything on the cards for the next quarter or through the rest of the year that you can tell us about right now?
“We have got a full album dropping this year, it’s our first full album. I don’t know if we have a solid date that we can technically hand out right now but it is coming this year and we are really excited about it. It’s almost done, we’ve finished tracking the whole thing and we’re about to show the full extent of what they mean about blurring the lines here and we don’t give a damn. We think people are really going to like it." (L)
“The whole point of the album is that if you want to know who we are, you listen front to back, you don’t skip a song and it will tell you the story of who we are, what we do and why we do what we do. There will be country songs, there will be heavy songs and it is what it is man.” (J)
Right on, I’m excited to hear it. Glad you’re here and after two very different weekends, this has been fun so thanks for taking some time.
“Make sure you check out our new song “See Me in a Suit” which dropped Friday which I think was yesterday and that is the debut single to launch this album and yeah man, appreciate your time so much, it’s so good to be here and great to hang out.” (L)
The new single “See Me in a Suit” from Lakeview is out now and is available HERE. You can find details of all Jesse and Luke’s upcoming US shows by checking out their WBESITE or you can be the first to be in the know about any forthcoming new releases and what the guys are up to by following along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return in 2025 for three days of festivities in Berlin over the weekend of March 7th to 9th which you will be able to find further detail on their WEBSITE and on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK where you will also be able to relive highlights from this year’s event.
The event will then roll into London, Glasgow and Belfast the following weekend between March 14th and 16th which you can keep a look out for all forthcoming details at the event WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) with line-up details expected to be announced later in the year.
The two of you are Pittsburgh boys, proper Yinzers who represent that city and the blue collar mentality that you talked about on stage but how did the two of you decide that you like each other enough to spend a lot of time together and play in a band with each other?
“It just happened man, we were writing songs and living together, working together in Pittsburgh then one thing led to another.” (J)
“We just grew up with very similar backgrounds, so may things about our lives are things that we share with similar friends and similar upbringings so, it was kind of organically happened but also it’s an easy decision when you know that you are doing something with your best friend. It’s weird to say and I didn’t realise this but this wasn’t a common thing and especially in this genre when you look at duos or bands as a lot of times it is put together but we are not like that at all, this is literally my best friend and I would die for him every day. We have said that as soon as this ever stops being fun, we stop doing it because we have done that in our past projects and it ruined it for us but this is about having fun and getting it out to the folks that need to hear it.” (L)
You do get that vibe of the two of you being tight then if you are working together because you believe in it and you love to do it together rather than just to keep going it is so authentic and that comes through. It’s different, it stands out and there isn’t the “box” with as much snobbery over here of what is and isn’t country so, I totally dig it.
“In America there are a lot of fake rules where you can’t do this and you can’t do that.” (J)
Yeah, people want to try and put you into a box.
“That is what that is, it is fake rules. I think country music is storytelling, I think country music is talking about real shit and I think we are a newer version of a Lynyrd Skynyrd, where they didn’t know where to put it back then, they were country, they were rock and they were that which is kind of what we are doing but also we aren’t ever going to put a hard label on what we are doing, we’re just trying to put out the best music that we can. We’re talking about the shit that we’ve been through that connects with people just like us.” (L)
I think that’s one of the reasons why the genre is so exciting, especially when you hear that people like Post Malone are coming into it and it is so different from what my friends that don’t listen to county, think I’m listening to.
“Yeah who cares what people want to call it, music is either good or bad. I like the idea of the Post Malone stuff, he comes from the same background as us and I just really enjoy the idea of blurring that line. As a fan and a person that listens to all different types of music, it would be really cool to see my favourite country artist, my favourite hip-hop artist and yada, yada, yada on one bill so, yeah sign me up. We’re making that our mission to kind of do that and do what we want to do, where people hop on board or they don’t.” (J)
Just to round off, in terms of new music and new projects on the way, have we got anything on the cards for the next quarter or through the rest of the year that you can tell us about right now?
“We have got a full album dropping this year, it’s our first full album. I don’t know if we have a solid date that we can technically hand out right now but it is coming this year and we are really excited about it. It’s almost done, we’ve finished tracking the whole thing and we’re about to show the full extent of what they mean about blurring the lines here and we don’t give a damn. We think people are really going to like it." (L)
“The whole point of the album is that if you want to know who we are, you listen front to back, you don’t skip a song and it will tell you the story of who we are, what we do and why we do what we do. There will be country songs, there will be heavy songs and it is what it is man.” (J)
Right on, I’m excited to hear it. Glad you’re here and after two very different weekends, this has been fun so thanks for taking some time.
“Make sure you check out our new song “See Me in a Suit” which dropped Friday which I think was yesterday and that is the debut single to launch this album and yeah man, appreciate your time so much, it’s so good to be here and great to hang out.” (L)
The new single “See Me in a Suit” from Lakeview is out now and is available HERE. You can find details of all Jesse and Luke’s upcoming US shows by checking out their WBESITE or you can be the first to be in the know about any forthcoming new releases and what the guys are up to by following along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return in 2025 for three days of festivities in Berlin over the weekend of March 7th to 9th which you will be able to find further detail on their WEBSITE and on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK where you will also be able to relive highlights from this year’s event.
The event will then roll into London, Glasgow and Belfast the following weekend between March 14th and 16th which you can keep a look out for all forthcoming details at the event WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) with line-up details expected to be announced later in the year.